St. Paul still waiting on City Council race result

Much was made of the first big test of the ranked-choice voting system in Minneapolis, where it took several days to officially declare the mayor's race and three City Council races.

But less attention has been paid to St. Paul, another city that uses ranked-choice voting, and where voters are still awaiting the results of Tuesday's results in the Ward 1 City Council race, the Pioneer Press reports.

Only about 5,000 votes were cast in the race (compared to 80,000 cast in Minneapolis), where seven candidates were vying for the job, the newspaper reports.

What's the holdup? The Ramsey County Elections office has been busy, Manager Joe Mansky said. Among other duties, on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after the election, Mansky's staff recovers polling equipment from across the county, he told the Pioneer Press. He said that it had been the plan all along to do any necessary ranked-choice vote recounting on the Monday after the election. He expects to declare an official winner later Monday.

Ranked-choice voting requires voters to choose multiple candidates, ranked in order. If no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote, candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated and second- and third-choice votes are redistrubuted during a "reallocation" recount process.